李圆一：从你最早开始做做的红色记忆系列，然后从幸福生活，英勇奋斗、中国风景开始，一直到现在的这个以华尔街金牛为素材的作品，所有出现的动物都在象征人类的某种东西，什么促使你这一路的转变？
陈文令：我作品中的动物形象其实是在象征中国乃至世界当下的人的某种精神状态，这里面包含了一种消费文化的状态。为什么做小红人、英勇奋斗、在到如今的麦道夫金融巨骗这样一个人物。当时在厦门的时候相对在一个封闭的环境里，我是依靠个人的一种本能的经验。后来慢慢地参加了各种展览之后，不停奋斗的一个历程是从地域性然后不断地向一个国际语境的方向发展。
李圆一：之前到你的工作室看到一张大的红色的照片，都是猪头的宴席。这类的乡土文化，对于你幸福生活和英勇奋斗系列选择的猪这种动物是不是有影响。
陈文令：这个东西对我应该影响是很大的。但是这两年针对中国的当代艺术家要么十分本土，要么十分国际化的语言的方式进行了思考。我觉的要放弃对于这两方面单独的依赖，而是要这两者结合起来，建立个人的一个艺术语言是十分重要的。以国际化的主题、国际化事件、国际上的艺术观念相融合，个人高超的艺术技能与具有前瞻性的观念的结合，是我更高的目标。对于我的作品我希望有一部分可以让人言说的，但是有一部分力量是不可解释的，就像我紧急出口这次的作品，这种力量是不好描述的，你可以现场感受。中国自古以来追求一种博大的气派。比方说中国的故宫、中国的长城、中国的陵墓。这个是中国人传统的人文性的基本特征。这不是我追求的终极目标，但是我想把这种力量延续。
李圆一：当你提到大中国文明发展，辽阔的土地、场景气派等等的，这是一个非常勇敢的词，至少中国以外的民族都很敏感，尤其在现在非常敏感。用大字来做作品达到一种什么感觉。有很多的中国当代艺术家都在做很大的东西，越做越大。成为现在一种很流行的时尚。难道你不相信小的东西有力量？
陈文令：在我的艺术经验里面我觉得拿我们东方国家来说，我觉得印度的卡普尔跟古普塔他们做的比我大。我觉得大和小不是衡量艺术品好坏的标准，但跟艺术家的自身的艺术气质有关，跟国际政治甚至是霸权主义无关，它不是属于政治威胁论范畴的话题。大在美学上也有独立价值，卡塞尔文献展博罗夫斯基走向天空的那件作品，如果做成一个人的高度，那就失败了。从雕塑的本体论来说，讲艺术不讲观念。那么空间的深浅是雕塑的灵魂，大的空间和小的空间反衬出来的气场和视觉魅力是不一样的。回过头来我还要说一个小雕塑的价值，有一种雕塑是必须要小它才有价值，这个是卡特兰的《希特勒跪走》这个必须要小，观念在这里是作品最重要的，空间一切都要围绕着这个观念。我将来我有力量挑战做优秀的小作品。
李圆一：注重外在的爆炸性的这种东西，外在冲击力的这种东西很好。今后也可以往内心的小的里面有那种东西慢慢去挖掘。通过你的艺术作品来谈论整个文化上的东西。在你的个展上一个作品很大，但是另外一个作品很小，大和小是很平衡的。它们之间的关联是一个是水平地出来一个小的，然后又是大的往上冲上去，是什么一种关联？
嘉宾：这里面的关联我是用传统的雕塑来实施我的艺术计划的。首先我要把传统的雕塑语言转换成既有现代性特征的语言，这件作品是由屁和地面，人和墙面形成一个三角型的构架关系。它消解了传统雕塑作品的重心感。传统雕塑必须要有一个重心才能站得住。那这个重心完全被我拿掉，我去掉了一个传统重心。
李圆一：你想提醒大家，现在在全球在整个世界上物质和精神是失衡。
陈文令：我所有形式的变革，都要围绕着观念服务，不然我就取消这个形式了。大的作品的就是在探讨由物质欲望所引发的精神层面的问题，结构是对这个观念的最恰当的表现形式。而那件小作品太小而空间太长，为了要均衡控制空间，拿一个镜子里面来映照这个形象，可以控制这个地方。用镜子来实现对空间的占领，让这个地方不会失衡。镜子是破碎的，也就说任何东西过度的飞速发展，里面会有一种破碎性。这里面有一种寓言性和宿命性的一种暗示。
李圆一：灯光的设置照在牛身上，这形成了牛的一个阴影也是同等重要的。
陈文令：我以后的作品可能会有东方神秘主义特征。也就是说这种概念跟这种镜像的概念是中国很传统的东西，是不存在的，是一种虚无感，又是一种幻象，这里强调这种幻象的力量。就是说传统的所有的雕塑是一个实体艺术，我把这种幻象作为艺术的材料，扩散雕塑的维度。使用这两种语言，用大作品小作品语言的综合性，使这个雕塑本身既是很传统，但是又很当代，包含了装置性的综合性语言。
李圆一：给你一个非常个人化的评论，在过去的五年里，从在上海的双年展到西班牙等等的展览，我看到了你的个人艺术进程，用各种综合性的语言在做你的作品。这次展览的作品达到了一个新的高度。像小房间的，这个已经不仅仅是个雕塑，是一个装置，而且这个装置用了一些很好的语言。让我想起俄国的一个艺术家，他的神秘性当时就很吸引我。
陈文令：有一点阴性的和中国古代哲学思想在里面，佛教里面说色即是空，空就是色的这个概念。色是指物质的意思，这个不是色情的色。虽然是物质的东西，但是最后可能是空的。我觉得这件作品开始就呈现神秘主义东方性的某一些东西。
李圆一：这个不仅仅是一个批评家和一个艺术家之间的谈话，实际上这是一个从文化层面，很好地对艺术作品的一种引导，一种解读。
陈文令：这里边我当时理解人世间的很多物质，很多很多事件都是像宗教里面有一个“一切有为法，如梦幻泡影，如露亦如电，应作如是观”，一切人世间觉的真实有用的东西，在中国传统哲学里面就是虚无、幻象。“为法”就是有作为的事。表面看里面很有作为，其实它是很容易消失的。我觉得这个影像有一点点指向，它只是一个影，不要以为真的发展的很快。
李圆一：有一个传说李白是在河里边淹死的，因为喝醉后他想去抓那个月亮，结果一下就淹死了。这个牛有点像21世纪李白象征体，企图要抓住一个现实里面什么东西，但是现在这个东西是虚幻的东西。这是一个毫无希望的，浮在那的一个形体。你现在这头牛从地球像火箭一样冲向宇宙的无限的一个空间。然后就像美国的阿姆斯特朗登上月球一样在空间中。这个就像一个没有希望的浮在宇宙当中的一个东西，像蝙蝠侠，或者一个超人。牛上的这个人对一个观者来讲的话，好像是无助地飞在空间，但是他没有力量飞，只有靠骑着这个牛身上。
陈文令：我的理解是现实的世界就像飞机场的那种输送带，你能在上面走，你一上去之后是不能停下来的，就像跑步机一样的输送带。你上去跑不能停的，停了要给你弹下来。没有别的选择，你要一直往前冲，有这种暗示的意思。被推着走，大家随着世界潮流被推着走。我会从很多现实中获得的启发的，美国有核武器，中国也要有，俄罗斯也要有。现在朝鲜有，韩国可能也要有。也就是说在这个游戏规则中永无止境的，将所有的人都要向前推。人类出现这样的格局，整个社会的物质、财富也都在发展。那人文如果不发展，那人类将来是会毁灭的。所以说人文艺术科学比单纯的物质更高的，物质控制人类，而精神反过来可以制约它，这样的世界才安全。
李圆一：所以我们用小房间的作品来谈象征性、神秘性就很明显。你五年以来得发展从局部的、地区性的，然后到全球性的发展过程是很清晰的。看到你的草图《斗鸡》等等的照片，包括你谈到吊上去的马等，你做了很多仔细研究。这种对全世界范围内艺术观念的学习和研究，对于你的发展像来说向用火箭把你发射上去的一样，升到了一个高度就是已经脱离了地心吸引力的高度。如果说达到人造卫星这种高度的时候，你会在24小时内看到全世界。你如果在人造卫星高度循环的时候，你可以看到12次太阳，12次月亮，太阳升起和降下去，有非常不一样的视角，在地上只能看到一次，而这不是仅仅看到中国的视角。
李圆一：我是希望今天这个谈话不仅仅是关于你的艺术，而且是关于整个中国当代艺术的行为。
陈文令：我希望能为中国当代艺术提供一个崭新的观看方式。其实卡特兰把一个马吊在天顶上面，这个就是一种新的观念模式。
李圆一：你说的不仅仅是一个观念的事情。
陈文令：一个艺术品给观众提供崭新的观看方式，也是观念的重要组成。所以我觉得一个伟大的艺术作品，世界性的艺术作品要提供给人想，同时要给人看。现在很多艺术家只给人想没有给人看。你说的可以俯视全球视野的这个理想的高度，我会用10年、20年，甚至毕生来努力达到它。
A Dialogue between Won-il Rhee and Wenling Chen
Won-il Rhee: You started to produce "Red Boy" series in the late 1990s, followed by "Happy Life"," Valiant Struggle","China Scene", "God of Materialism", and for now you take inspirations from the Wall Street golden bull and Bernard Madoff. All these animals symbolize some qualities of mankind. What impels you continuously to change along your road?
Wenling Chen: The various animal images appeared in my works serve as symbols or metaphors of some human mental condition in consumption times, such as expansion, inflation, violence, desire, greed, and alienation. The "Red Boy" series is created when I was in my hometown Xianmen, which is a comparatively closed environment. As a mirror of my childhood, this series reflected my genuine qualities in my childhood, represented my sentimental attachment to my childhood, and became the turning point of my art career. It was the "Red Boy" that took me to the track of contemporary art.
Rhee: I noticed a huge red huge photography work concerning a pig head feast in your studio. Does this sort of local culture have a great impact on your "Happy Life" and "Valiant Struggle" series?
Chen: I do acknowledge the influence that grass-root folklore had on myself, however, I'm still not a regionalism artist. I always believe that over-emphasizing nationalism is narrow nationalism. Extreme nationalization and extreme westernization are the two trends which will result in difficulty in reading and reduction of audience. I strive to mingle nationality, internationality, popularity, and elitism into my works, in order to provide a kind of spiritual demand and reading possibility for more people.
Rhee: I find you are making larger-sized works in the recent years, inputting enormous manpower and material resources. How do you think of this?
Chen: I never think size is the decisive criteria for evaluating an artwork. Actually I'm obsessed with a kind of aura diffused by artwork, which cannot be explained in words. You can sense the aura only on site, while looking at pictures is entirely another matter. I hope my works can arouse people's thinking as well as visual sense, more than a topic or a story. China has a long-standing tradition stressing the beauty of breadth, for instance, Chinese grottoes, mausoleums, Forbidden City, Great Wall and so on. Your question reminds me that many Western artists make much larger artworks than that of mine, including earth artists and device artists. I believe elephants have their own reasons to be big, while butterflies have their own reasons to be small, allowing no explanation.
Rhee: You are very brave to mention China's beauty of breadth and large population on vast land, and these topics are very sensitive to nations outside China. A number of Chinese contemporary artists are producing larger and larger artworks as a kind of fashion. Don't you believe small things have power?
Chen: I believe in big power as well as small power. Indian artists Anish Kapoor and Subodh Gupta have made much larger artwork. Italian artist Maurizo Cattelan has made much smaller artworks. However, they are all first-rate artists. Large or small only relates to the artistic temperament of an artist, rather than international politics, economics, military affairs, or hegemonism. It does not belong to the threat theory, so there is no need to be too sensitive about that. Large and small have their independent value in aesthetics. Take Borofsky's sculpture Walking to the Sky at Kassel Documenta as an example, if the inclined steel pipe was as small as a chopstick, it must be a failure. Another example, if the Italian artist Cattelan's kneeling Hitler is not much smaller than a real person, but made into a 20 meters high city sculpture, it would be a failure too. Sense of space of artworks gives off different aura and visual glamour. I think large or small should serve the thought and concept of an artwork. Anyway, I would like to thank you for your question. I have confidence to challenge myself with excellent small artworks in future.
Rhee:I appreciate the focus on external explosiveness and inner impact. Later on, you can gradually search into those tiny but culturally rich artworks in your heart, and discuss the overall cultural issues through your artwork. Some of your artworks in your solo exhibition are quite large, some very small, while, large and small make a harmonious match. The large work rushes towards the wall, and another seems to struggle out of the wall, therefore, it creates an ingenious association.
Chen: The most distinctive feature of the two artworks is that they abolish the sense of gravity created by traditional sculpture which should stand vertically against ground. They take the wall as the weighted plane directly. Such a manner presents dangerous and terrifying feelings. Besides, I obtained many inspirations through device art and conceptual art, to transfer traditional sculpture language into contemporary sculpture features. I do not support the evaluation criteria of artwork from the perspective of art taxonomy; however, I firmly believe that great artwork can be produced with any art media. Easel painting and sculpture will remain alive, depending on how to produce them.
Rhee: Several of your series works revealed the unbalanced relationship between material and spirit in consumerism times.
Chen: All the innovations of my form language and methodology are in consistent with the theme concept. I would never be an artist who creates form only for form's sake. Today the mainstream value is quite different from that of Axis Era two thousand years ago when integral humanity was respected. After stepping into the industrial era, the so-called "powerful" countries, for instance, the US, the UK, German, Japan, are powerful in material and economic aspects, and are characterized with expansionism and exploitation. They have been seeking the material world day and night. They also set up the standard of the world's mainstream value, which all the other countries must follow, otherwise they might suffer beating or bullying. This is also true to military affairs. Real "denuclearization" and "military mutual trust" put forward by Obama could hardly be realized. At least it cannot be accepted by King Jong. That is to say, science is far more developed than humanities. If some politicians were crazy, the world would have been bombed several times. The world is lacking in sense of security. I feel it is a kind of material and spiritual imbalanced or weightless relationship.
Rhee: In the small room at your exhibition, the light projects on the flying bull with its shadow on the wall, while right in the opposite is a broken round mirror. The shadow and the broken round mirror are quite impressing and profound in meaning. This way of exhibition went far beyond the traditional sculpture presentation.
Chen: There is a little Oriental mysticism. In a small dark room, the shadow of dynamic bull's wind, and the broken round mirror are separated in different space, while they are linked in a subtle way, quite like the style of traditional Chinese painting. Making the room filled rather than empty, is the artistic reality that I draw from the sense reality. Then it is combined with the final idea of "how to escape". In a word, it is a sculpture with device language, and I hope it can convey a sense of strangeness to audience.
Rhee: I will make a very personal comment. During the five years since you came to Beijing, in the significant exhibitions such as Shanghai Biennale in 2006, Asia Arts Exhibition in Germany JKM, Spain Biennale, I can see clearly that you are making progress, producing artworks with comprehensive languages. It is so surprising that this exhibition attains a new dimension. The work in the small room is not only a sculpture, but a device, which employs a delicate artistic language. That reminds me of a good Russian artist. I'm fascinated with his mystery.
Chen: You could find a sense of masculinity in my previous works. However, the in the small room is somewhat feminine, with a little Chinese Zen taste. The shadow on the wall and mirage in the mirror, for example, convey a sense of void and mystery. That echoes with a word in Chinese Buddhism, "Se is empty; emptiness fills Se." Se refers to the material world. In recent years, I find myself intensely interested in the method of transferring and absorbing traditional Chinese culture, including folklore. Thirty years has witnessed the development of Chinese contemporary art. Nothing would be worse if today a Chinese artist still devotes himself to the Western art, and produce his works totally in the Western way.
Rhee: Today's dialogue exceeds that between an artist and a critic. We are discussing not only your art, but some cultural issues on large scale. And we hope this can shed some light to young artists.
Chen: Today's mainstream value is quite materialized. Everyone appears to have his own personality, while in fact they share more or less the same character. It is very worrying if artists fail to keep distance from the mainstream value. I appreciate the Taiwan director Hou Xiaoxian's remark, "Intellectuals always stand opposite to the mainstream of the society. You are supposed to find problems and raise criticisms in times of peace and prosperity, and find the light and hope when everyone else is cursing the time." Artists, in the same way, should hold transdencity and criticism to reality.
Rhee: There is a story that Li Bai was drowned. When was drunk, he intended to grab the moon in the river, but slipped and fell into the river, finally drowned. Your flying bull runs to an insubstantial mirror, is similar to the situation that Li Bai tried to grab the moon. People try to grasp concrete things in reality, only find an illusion. The bull's wind, like a rocket, sends the bull and the person into the universe, just like Armstrong's stepping on the moon, insubstantial and illusory.
Chen: The world, in my mind, is characterized by speed and expansion, leaving you no moment for breath. It seems everyone is running on the treadmills as fast as possible, and will be thrown away once the machine stops. Everyone is running, but not clear about the destination. In each field, the direction weights more than the speed. If you follow a right direction, you may get there even you walk slowly. In contrast, if your direction is wrong, the faster you run, the farther you would leave to the destination. Sometimes I reject too much external consultation, to avoid losing my own idea or being at a loss. To trust yourself is much more important than to trust others.
Rhee: I know you are from Fujian Province, which is the hometown of many prominent artists, such as Cai Guoqiang, Huang Yongping and so on. Do they have any influence on you?
Chen: They embrace Minnan Oceanic Culture— open, challenging, adventurous, and wise. They stood on a high position from the start and have a broad and long foresight. This is what I should learn from.
Rhee: I know your art starts from a grass-root perspective. We are glad to witness your progress from a local artist to an international artist. In recent years, you've also conducted insightful research on prominent artists' concept and their methodologies worldwide. When an artist reaches certain height, he would escape the gravitation, and reach a satellite's height. At that time, you can see the world within 24 hours of a day. If you travel on the satellite's height, you can see the sun twelve times a day, see the moon twelve times a day, and how observe how they rise and fall. That is a very special perspective. On the earth you can see that only once. Significant Chinese artists are not confined to the Chinese perspective.
Chen: It is my sincere hope that I could step on a high level and have a broad view. What I have achieved is nothing but a beginning, and there is still a long way ahead. I have a strong mind to conquer higher artistic highland one after another. The ideal perspective to overlook the planet you mentioned, is what I would strive for in ten years, twenty years, thirty years or even my whole life time.
Date: Sep 4, 2009
Place: at a café in 798